anchor has faced a lot of adversity in her life before she impressed with her business acumen in programme
Raised on a council estate in Kingston upon Hull, Michelle left school aged just 16 with two GCSEs. And just a year later, tragedy struck when her older sister Fiona – who was 19 at the time – died after a fatal fall from a building.
Fiona had been on the eighth floor of a tower block in Hull, leaving her sister “devastated”. She explained: “I felt that she’d been robbed of having a life, so I decided I was going to make mine extraordinary. I wanted a life that was good enough for her and me.”
Michelle shared a three-bedroomed terrace house with her five brothers and sisters, explaining: “Money was an issue. We were only allowed one light on in the house at a time and we didn’t even have a fridge.”
She added to Cosmopolitan: “I got in with a bad crowd and, by the age of 16, I was spending all of my time on a huge council estate in Hull with a boyfriend who was in and out of prison.”
Michelle Dewberry has faced her fair share of tragedy (Image: ITV)
With her entrepreneurial head firmly on her shoulders, Michelle went on to win the second ever series of The Apprentice. By 2021 she had landed her prime-time GB News show, Dewbs & Co.
Further tragedy struck in 2014, when Michelle was diagnosed with skin . Seeking medical advice for a strange growth on her nose, the star was reassured twice by doctors that it was just a pimple – until a biopsy revealed she needed urgent surgery, leaving her with a centimetre-deep crater on her face.
She said of the ordeal: “My brush with cancer did not start with a mole – as most people imagine – but with an innocent-looking pimple. I first noticed it on the right side of my nose in spring 2013. I haven’t had spots since I was a teenager.
She was rushed for surgery to treat her skin cancer (Image: Instagram)
“I didn’t realise that the cancer was burrowing its way into my skin. The longer it was left, the more damage it was doing.
“I was lulled into such a false sense of security, the cancer would probably still be growing today if I hadn’t bumped into a dermatologist at a party last December. When I heard the C word I crumbled.”
Tragically, Michelle’s cousin Susan Farrall has also been diagnosed with cancer – but hers is terminal. She contracted mesothelioma, a terminal lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
She explained while appearing on GB News: “I was told to probably have about nine to 12 months to live. My diagnosis came after six months of investigations, being treated for post infections. I was coughing and breathless. I had fluid on the lung, which was drained three times – all classic symptoms of mesothelioma, as I know now.
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She spent a month in hospital after delivering her baby boy (Image: Instagram)
“When I asked why it had taken so long to diagnose despite these classic symptoms, I was told by my consultant that they weren’t looking for it with me. I was a 56 year old female in previous good health, and I didn’t fit the demographic.”
In her private life, Michelle is loved up with former FC owner Simon Jordan. The pair share a son – though his delivery was not straightforward.
Michelle gave birth at just 31 weeks in an emergency C-section, and was hospitalised for a month while she recovered from the ordeal. She explained: “I was absolutely delighted to have discovered that I was pregnant. But unbeknownst to me, I was going to end up having a very complicated and scary pregnancy.
“It was a scary, horrible time. It was during as well, which didn’t help, but all the time I was told that I was at high risk of infection. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.”
Thankfully, her baby boy was born “happy and healthy” – and Michelle has spent years supporting premature baby charities.